Distant recurrences in stage 1 common?

[Camsmomme]

Hi.  It seems I have been hearing alot of stories lately of stage 1 breast cancer patients that are recurring and metastasizing years later.  This is of course scary for me because I am stage 1.  Is this common?  I always thought stage 1 meant that you are probably done with the cancer and fine.

thanks for any help you can give me.

becky

[CCF-RN,MSN-JS]

Dear Becky, For many years it was not customary to treat Stage I breast cancer with chemotherapy or hormone therapy.  These patients generally have a good prognosis, with only about one chance in four of further tumor spread.  For cancers smaller than 1cm in diameter, the chance of recurrence is less than 10 percent within 10 years of diagnosis.  Recent trials suggest, however, that Stage I breast cancer patients with tumors greater than  1 cm will benefit from adjuvant therapy. (Adjuvant treatment is treatment given after surgery to try to prevent or minimize the growth of microscopic deposits of tumor cells that might grow into a recurrent tumor). Two large trials by the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast Project showed significant reduction in recurrences in the opposite breast at four-year follow-up for estrogen receptor negative patients given chemotherapy and for estrogen receptor positive patients treated with tamoxifen.

The reason for adjuvant therapy is to decrease the odds of an early recurrence, if there might be a cancer cell outside the area of the surgery or radiation field that may grow into a recurrent tumor.  Having a history of breast cancer puts one at higher risk of breast cancer throughout one's lifetime, this doesn't mean you will get breast cancer again, it mean's that you are at higher risk of breast cancer than a women who has never had breast cancer.